Aufbauliteratur

The key political events that frame the historical dimension of Aufbauliteratur are unusually clearly: • The formal foundation of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) under strong leadership of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, SED) in October 1949 • The construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 Despite these marking events, the development of the SED's ideology and its tendency to use literature to promote this have emerged much earlier under Soviet occupation – and East German literature not immediately turned away from Aufbauliteratur to move on to Ankunftsliteratur, as historical processes are rather fluid. == Socialist realism ==

Socialist realism assumed that were "influenced pedagogically by arts and literature for a ideological reformation and education of the workers in terms of Socialism". At the heart of its aesthetics were ideals of Realism, Socialist partiality, the Socialist struggle for progress and socialist ideas as main theme, social optimism pointing towards a bright future and worker or peasant as positive hero. This attracted leftist writers returning from exile to settle in the GDR, and provided ideological framework which believing in meant cutting short today to gain a better world tomorrow (i.e. to justify tight control). This focus resulted in "cultural poverty" without artistic liberty or opportunity for a critical conversation in the arts – yet in its early years didn't derogate plenty of writers' enthusiasm for Marxism-Leninism. == Dimension of state control ==

In 1952 the Union of German Writers (DSV) was formed as "the organization of writers [...] who actively co-construct the developed socialist society". Membership was compulsory – and as the DSV was tightly linked to the party leadership, state control is clear. Tight control of all writers organised in the DSV was ensured in various ways: Firstly, in its foundation the DSV agreed Socialist Realism as unifying and binding aesthetic norms. the Institute for Literature "Johannes R. Becher" was founded in 1955. Thirdly, the DSV regularly published the journals neue deutsche literatur (New German Literature, ndl) and Der Schriftsteller (The Writer) as organs to express the ideological and artistic guidelines for writers. it also held a monopoly over cultural and political questions – as representing the workers' views. They not only oversaw the release but also production and distribution of books As authors in the GDR often also worked as journalists, they were significantly limited too by the release of information, controlled by a third committee, the Universal German Information Service. Also in the DSV, the "task and value of the socialist journalist for the Aufbau des Sozialismus" were prominently discussed, creating a normativizing effect on authors. == The "Bitterfeld Path" ==

The Bitterfelder Weg (Bitterfeld Path) was an initiative between 1959 and 1964 which attempted to bridge the gap between academic elitism of the writers and the reality of farmers and workers in the GDR, named after the place in which the first conference took place, the industrial Bitterfeld in today's Saxony-Anhalt. Under the initiative, East German writers were encouraged to spend time in factories and other industrial plants. Literature was to consolidate the single ruling party, the SED, as "conscious advance of the working class" But literature remained volksfern (distanced from people's reality): Although Marxist rhetoric penetrated public discourse, literature failed to form the bridge to East German reality. This changes included orientation towards contemporary soviet idols which "caused a change in the language used by writers in the GDR [...] Language served as propaganda". Yet, after the 2nd Conference in 1964 it became clear that writers didn't have the capacity to permanently move into factories and farms and that the "Proletarian Writers Circles", though enthusiastically arising in hundreds of factories and farms, couldn't deliver the literary quality demanded by the SED and the DSV. ==References==